The Dancing House: Prague’s wonkiest building

The other morning, I woke up feeling quite dizzy. Unless I was lying flat on my back, the room felt like it was spinning, just a little bit. (No, I wasn’t drunk.) It was horrible. But I imagine this is how the people who live in the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague feel every day.

Located on the site of a house bombed by the US in 1945, the building is more than a little unusual. It’s made up of two main parts – one a glass tower which curves and narrows, and almost looks like it’s leaning into the other part of the building, and the other which features unaligned windows and wonky mouldings.

Far from being the result of a building project gone horribly, horribly wrong, the Dancing House (named because it looks like the two towers at one end are dancing with each other, you see?) was meant to look like this.

It’s built in the deconstructivist style, which basically means it looks a bit wonky. It was the brainchild of Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić who partnered with Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. They completed the design in 1992, and the building was finished in 1996.

The idea behind the design is the contrast between static and dynamic, yin and yang, meant to symbolise the transition of Czechoslovakia from a communist regime to an independent democracy.

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About Dom Stapleton

As well as being the world’s northernmost capital city, Reykjavik in Iceland is also an incredible place to visit.

We stayed in a hotel right in the middle of the city and spent most days walking around from there. The main thing we noticed (apart from the cold, of course) was that the people are so friendly. At home, trying to cross the road is a nightmare, but in Reykjavik, the cars are literally queuing up to let you across.

When my partner and I went, in January 2013, the sun only started rising at about 10 am, which was a strange experience. And it got dark at about 4 pm each day!